Looking for a pot of gold

I have started tithing again, not because I am wanting to worship God with my finances or obey what he tells us to do in the Bible by giving, but because our financial situation sucks right now, and usually tithing seems to help. So here goes.

The speaker at the conference last weekend talked about how tithing is really good for your finances and my husband just told me that our pastor told him that if you don't tithe "that money just disappears." Also, in the past I have noticed that when we make painful tithes that don't seem to make sense to do, we do seem to end up being okay and even ending up with more than we anticipated. One Sunday morning we gave a painful $1000 lump sum tithe, and that afternoon Ray's grandparents told us they wanted to pay off his college loans. Pretty cool. In that particular circumstance it seemed pretty miraculous and kind of attributable to God, but in general, I think tithing just forces you to be more conscious of what you are spending money on.

So on the phone I told Ray that I wasn't tithing out of worship but out of a desire to make more money. He was appalled. Then I explained that I am just trying to be more honest about this stuff, and that once again, someone (he) was jumping down my throat for it, making me feel like a greedy, unbelieving jerk. I am curious, though, if the tithing principle (give more, get more) will work if you aren't doing it for the right motive. They say not to test God, and that really isn't what I am trying to do, but I am curious.

This brings me to another issue I have been having, which is that our church seems to be pretty into making money recently. I don't like it. They are against the sort of poverty mentality, whereby you think God wants us all to live like the poor and suffer, etc., but when I look at Jesus' life, I don't see someone trying to make a bunch of money. For example, this one church we seem to be trying to model ourselves after sells everything they have... for a lot of money. Their bookstore rakes in millions each year. I need to ask someone about this, but my gut reaction is that that sounds just like the people selling doves and whatnot at the tabernacle when Jesus blasted in and started overturning tables. Why do we all just seem to pick and choose what we like about the Bible? I, for example, love the depressing Bible stuff, like the story of Job. Not stories like that of Solomon, who gets tons of wives and concubines and money just because he chose wisdom. I pick and choose just like everyone else. But I don't like other people's interpretations of the Bible, so what am I supposed to do?